SOUNDTRACK: CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG-KEXP in studio May 11, 2010 (2010).
Charlotte Gainsbourg is a fascinating individual. Between her acting and her singing, she’s had quite a life. And even moreso since she had a near fatal accident.
That accident formed the nexus of her album IRM. And this interview and performance is done in support of that disc. IRM was made with Beck. Beck’s not here, and the songs are more stripped down, but they sound really good in this format.
Gainsbourg sings the Beck-sung-on-IRM “Heaven Can Wait” and really makes it her own. The other three songs here work very well in this more acoustic setting. “Me and Jane Doe” is practically acoustic already and “Time of the Assassins” and “Trick Pony” are reworked very well. And Charlotte is a charming interviewee as well.
It’s another excellent in-studio performance from KEXP.
[READ: March 31, 2011] “The Dead Are More Visible”
I read all of The Walrus stories when I received the magazines. I wondered when I would completely recognize a story when re-reading them now. Well, this was the first one that I remembered parts of vividly. And why not–there’s a search for a missing eye on an ice hockey rink. That’s hard to forget. However, I didn’t remember the ending and in fact, my memory added many more details than actually occurred in the story.
The beginning of the story, which is very different from what I just described, was less memorable but perhaps more interesting. The story opens with a woman reflecting about her graveyard shift job. In this case the job is literally a graveyard shift, because the park she works in has a graveyard within it. However, her job is not really scary–she is there to make the ice for the upcoming skating season. It takes several nights of very cold weather and she must go out in all her gear and fill up the rink, several tousand litres of water at a time.
While the ice settles, her time is her own–to listen to music and read. She gets a few hundred pages read a night (dream job!) She prefers romance and horror novels. The introduction of horror novels into the story foreshadows a bit about the scene ewith the eye later on, although for this is not a horror story. Continue Reading »
Jónsi is the lead singer from Sigur Rós. This is his first solo album and, honestly it’s not radically different from Sigur Rós (were we expecting trip hop or something?). However, within the confines of the type of music that Sigur Rós play (swirling orchestral songs), Jónsi’s solo disc is kind of different. And the difference comes in tone.
For while Sigur Rós records are orchestral and swirly, the are also kind of dark and moody. Jonsi’s songs are more upbeat. They’re ethereal both in style and tone.
I’m also surprised to see just how short these songs are. They feel like they are very long (epic in a good way) but in fact, only two songs go over 5 minutes–most are in the mid fours.
There’s no question that if you dislike Sigur Rós you will not like this record. Jónsi’s voice is the same after all–gorgeous sweeping, helium sounding and out of this world. But if you doubted whether Jónsi could work without his mates in the band, you need not worry. This album is a beauty.
[READ: May 19, 2011] “The Trusty”
I didn’t think I would like this story. It concerns a subject that I generally don’t have a lot of interest in: chain gangs in the south. And yet, Rash’s writing was excellent and the story was quite compelling.
The Trusty of the title is named Sinkler. Sinkler is a prisoner on the chain gang–he stole money from a business and got 5 years. He has served 18 months with very good behavior and has been given the unofficial title of Trusty, which means he can do things like walk a mile up the road to the next farm house to see if their well has water for the men on the gang.
And this is what he does. They are working on a road and have moved far enough past their current source of water that Sinkler offers to walk up to the next house to bring water back. When he arrives, the door is answered by a young woman (between 18-22–Sinkler himself is in his 20s). She is standoffish and unmoved by him. She is also married–her (much older) husband is plowing the field. She agrees to give Sinkler two buckets of water if, at the end of the day he agrees to leave one bucket there as payment.
Sinkler agrees and decides that he would like more than water from the young woman. And over the next few weeks he returns every day and tries to win her over. And Lucy begins to sweeten on Sinkler. Continue Reading »
This was Dino Jr’s reunion album of the original line up. And it sounds like the band had hardly gone away.
The opening tracks showcases the diversity of Dino Jr’s dynamic: a heavy, fast poppy number and then a “ballad” (Mascis style) and then a more heavy chugga chugga song.
By the middle of the album the band loosens up even more. “Been There All the Time” has that kind of sloppy (but really not sloppy, they are actually very tight) sound of great Dino. “I Got Lost” is the inevitable falsettoed Mascis track. It’s slow and unusual for the rest of the disc, but it really showcases the band’s diversity.
The most notable things about Dino are Mascis’ voice (a kind of slacker pseudo-whine) and his wild guitar soloing. And they are prominent here. Mascis’ voice sounds great (of course, if you didn’t like it then, you wont like it now), and his songwriting is top notch.
I am actually more partial to the Dino Jr albums after Barlow left (blasphemy!–although even I admit the diminishing returns on the last few discs). But on this disc, the band sounds totally revitalized and the songs are uniformly great.
Lou Barlow gets two songs. They sound very Barlow: a bit slower but very catchy. As I wondered about Farm, I’m not sure what would make Barlow return to Dino since the band still feels like Mascis’ band with Barlow getting a few songs. I mean, they sound great together on the disc, but it’s clear that Mascis is the star here. But whatever the reason, it’s a wonderful return to form and one of those rare reunions that really works.
[READ: May 18, 2011] “The Cat’s Table”
The combination of this title and the accompanying picture (a large cruise ship) was very confusing to me. It turns out that the Cat’s Table is what a passenger on the cruise ship calls the table that they are assigned because it is as far from the Captain’s table as you can get.
The story opens in the third person as it describes a young boy (aged 11) who is seen boarding this large cruise ship which is travelling from Colombo, Ceylon to England (a 21 day journey). The boy is traveling by himself to meet his mother.
After that brief section, the story switches to first person, from the boy’s point of view.
I was shocked to read that this eleven year old boy was dropped off on a cruise liner with no adult supervision. But it turns out that there are several boys on board who are his age, and he even knows one from his school. Coincidentally, his neighbor Emily, the closest thing he has to real family, is also on board. Continue Reading »
There’s a fascinating release history behind this EP (which mostly means fans wind up with three copies of “Stanley Kubrick.” First it came out as EP with 4 tracks (which I ordered on import). Then it was released in the US as EP+2 with two songs from the Fuck the Curfew EP (which was not released in the US) and finally in 2000 it was reissued again as EP+6 with ten songs in total (compiling 1997’s 4 Satin, 1998’s No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew), and 1999’s EP–I didn’t buy this version because by then I had the original imports).
“Stanley Kubrick” is a slow burner with a great repeated mournful guitar. It’s one of their best songs. “Christmas Song” is a slow, upbeat track with a very pretty melody. “Burn Girl Prom Queen” opens with some really quiet guitar. After about 90 seconds, a brass band kicks in adding amazing horns over the simple guitar melody. It’s my favorite track on the disc. “Rage: Man” is the first song on the album where Mogawai’s noise tendencies really come to the fore. Once again, it’s a simple slow melody (with piano). About two minutes in, the song is bombarded with noise guitars that take over the song but don’t obscure the melody. There’s also a noisy guitar solo played over the noise. Soon enough all the noise ends, and the simple, harmonic’d guitar comes back and the song ends peacefully. It’s a great example of Mogwai dynamics.
The other two tracks, “Rollerball” and “Small Children in the Background” come from the other EP as I mentioned. It’s odd to squeeze in songs from a different release, but Mogwai don’t sound terribly different on these early EPs, so these songs work well together.
Despite their length, Mogwai EPs are pretty uniformly wonderful.
[READ: June 1, 2011] Five Dials Number 8 bis
After publishing Five Dials Number 8, they quickly rushed out this addendum to the issue, which they’ve called Five Dials 8 bis. According to the introduction: “The definition of ‘bis’ is a passage to be repeated, so here is a small bis for our eighth issue.”
It’s only 9 pages long and really only contains one long piece. Primarily, this is a memento of their Paris-issue release party, which they held in Paris (duh). The opening pages includes scans of postcards (“One of our volunteers waded into conversations and asked attendees to write down their own thoughts on Paris. We’ve reprinted five of our favourites.”) The editor’s letter, which explains all about the party and this issue, is not credited to anyone, so I can’t so who is responsible. [This lack of proper crediting is the one major flaw with this publication–just saying illustrations by, and then not saying which is whose, or not including the date of publication is maddening].
The big article is by Guy de Maupassant (translated by Siân Miles). Continue Reading »
Despite the pedigree of this band: Rage Against the Machine + Chris Cornell, I wasn’t all that interested in the band when they came out. I was over Rage and was bored by Cornell’s solo stuff. But then recently, someone donated a copy of this album to th elibrary, so I thought I’d see what all of the fuss was about (nine years ago).
There are times when this album is really superb. The Rage guys get an amazingly full sound out of their instruments (the choruses of “Show Me How to Live” are so full). And when it works, and Cornell’s amazing voice is in full force, this seems like a genius pairing.
But there’s a lot that feels kind of clunky here (and there’s some really bad choices of guitar solo work by Tom Morello–the weird noises that compriose he solo of “What You Are”–in Rage the noises were weird but exciting and inflammatory, these are just kind of dull. Worse yet, is the, well, stupid solo in “Like a Stone”–boring and ponderous at the same time). Although he redeems himself somewhat with the cool solo on the otherwise dull “Intuition”.
The biggest surpise comes in “Like a Stone” which is insanely catchy and mellow–something one assumed Rage didn’t know how to do). Lyrically the song is pretty stupid (as are most of the songs), but the combination of melody and Cornell’s great vocal lines really raise this song high–shame about the solo). Also, a song like “Shadow of the Sun” seems to highlight Cornell’s more mellow moments (and shows that the Rage guys can actually play that slow), and they all seem to be in synch.
And there are several songs that rock really hard, sounding at times like Rage and at time like Soundgarden, but working on all cylinders together. “Cochise” and “Set It Off” are simply great riff rock songs.
But ten or so years later, and twenty years since Badmotorfinger (my favorite Soundgarden album), it’s nice to hear Cornell rocking again. Although man, the record is too long!
[READ: June 1, 2011] Five Dials Number 8
For Issue Number 8, Five Dials went to Paris. And so the whole issue is given over to French concerns and ideas. For a magazine that didn’t need a change of pace, it’s a delightful change of pace. The feel of the magazine is different, and there’s an air of vacation about it (which is not to suggest that it is slacking off in any way), and it feels really vibrant.
I don’t know a lot about France in general. I mean, I’ve been there, and I keep up with things, but I am not a Francophile by any means. So a lot of this stuff was simply new to me, which is always fun. What I especially liked about the issue was that they were not afraid to show some of France’s uglier sides as well–it’s not just a tourism booster.
It even starts out differently than the other issues. Continue Reading »
ATTENDED: WEIRD AL YANKOVIC-Live at the State Theater, New Brunswick, NJ May 19, 2011 (2011).
I’ve seen “Weird Al” live three times now and I have never been disappointed by the show. The first year my friend Matt and I waited out by the bus and got the bands’ (minus Al’s) autograph. The second time we waited even longer and Al had an autograph (and picture taking) session in the theater after the show (how cool is that?).
This year, Sarah and I didn’t wait around afterwards (kids at home) but the show was still great. Al made a joke after the first song thanking his opening act, Technical Difficulties. (There were indeed 45 minutes of technical difficulties before the show, but Al’s joke made us quickly forget it–and, kudos to the State Theater: I ordered my tickets online from their site and the day after the concert, the theater owner sent an email apologizing for the delay. Classy!).
Sarah had never seen him perform before, so she was pleasantly surprised by the set selection. I was also surprised by the set selection because he pulled out a few older, more obscure tracks (“Frank’s 2000″ TV” (!), “You Don’t Love Me Any More”–complete with Al smashing a guitar!). But he also dazzled with some new tracks from his forthcoming album.
The set opened with the polka medley (“Polka Face”). This is the first polka medley that I didn’t know any (well almost any) of the sped up songs, but it’s always a treat to watch them play it live. The one complaint with the show was that the sound in the theater wasn’t very good (which is surprising given that it’s an old theater) so it was hard to make out a lot of the words, especially to the new songs–and what’s Al without the lyrics?). But his new song “I Perform This Way” (parody of Lady Gaga’s “I Was Born This Way”) was fantastic (Al was dressed up like a cartoon peacock).
Yes, costume changes. One of the most entertaining things about Al’s shows is the costume changes. For all of his big video hits, he comes out dressed like the video (the band does as well, although it’s a bit more subtle). So, we get the Amish garb in “Amish Paradise,” the Michael Jackson red jacket for “Eat It”–(another surprise) and, my personal favorite, the fat suit from “Fat.” One of the funniest costume changes was for a song that will sadly not be released on the album (but you can hear and download it here), “You’re Pitiful,” in which he wore multiple T-shirts (about 5) which all expressed some kind of funny comment (anyone know who was the face on one of the shirts?) and finally ended in a Spongebob Squarepants shirts and tutu.
So how does he do all of these costume changes? In between songs, when the band runs offstage, they play wonderful video clips. Some of the clips are from his TV shows, some are faux documentaries, and the best are interviews that Al splices together (you can see a whole bunch here) which are hilarious and surprisingly mean-spirited. I wish he would release them (and any other AlTv segments) on DVD, but I imagine that no one would ever give permission for that–check out the Kevin Federline one, for instance. But they’re all pretty great.
The crowd was also totally into it (including the guy behind us with an Al wig (and a Harvey the Wonder Hamster). And the age range was fantastic–from kids to grandparents. My only hope is that my kids are old enough to come to a concert next time he comes around.
Oh and a brief word about his band. He’s had the same four guys with him for years and years and years. Rubén Valtierra is the newest member of the band and he’s been with them since 1991. Jim West (guitar), Steve Jay (Bass) and Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz (drums) have been with Al since 1980. They are tight as a drum, can play incredibly diverse styles at the drop of a hat (check out “CNR” which sounds exactly like The White Stripes) and they all seem to have a lot of fun on stage (see them jump in the air on “Fat” or the crazy vocal-only solo at the end of “Yoda”
–which I think is longer than ever and totally mind-blowing).
[READ: May 21, 2011] This is a Book
I recently read Martin’s “This is Me” in the New Yorker. “This is Me” is, along with about 100 other things in This is a Book. I also heard Demetri Martin on NPR a few Sundays ago and he read a few short things from This is a Book. And they were quite funny.
Indeed, the funny things in this book are really very very funny. It seems to work that the shorter the item, the bigger the laugh. Conversely there are a number of longer, extended jokes which just go on and on, like a Saturday Night Live sketch that just won’t end. Those quickly lose their humorous value. Fortunately there aren’t too many of those in here.
What makes me smile a lot about the book are the jokes he plays with book conventions. So the title page says “This is a book by Demetri Martin called This is a Book by Demetri Martin.” Or the previous page:
Also by Demetri Martin
*
*Nothing yet. This is his first book.
The book opens with “How to Read this Book.”
If you’re reading this sentence then you’ve pretty much got it. Good job. Just keep going the way you are.
I’m not going to spoil the rest of the book (or talk about each piece). But I will mention some real highlights: Continue Reading »
SOUNDTRACK: TRENCHMOUTH-Vs the Light of the Sun (1994).
I learned about Trenchmouth from an interview with Fred Armisen on The Sound of Young America. He informed us that he was the drummer in Trenchmouth before he was on SNL. And he and Jesse Thorn had an amusing discussion about how he was sure they would make it big. I can’t recall if they played a snippet of the band or not, but it’s a pretty laughable thought that Trenchmouth might be his claim to fame. Because they are awesome, but they are totally NOT commercial.
In fact, just a few seconds into the lead-off track “Washington! Washington!” will tell you how noncommercial they are. (It’s a sort of fast heavy punk version of prog rock–jazzy guitars, independent bass, wonderful drumming (Armisen kicks ass) and the screamed hyperkinetic vocals of Damon Locks (he’s passionate, man).
There’s a lot of atonal work here (“Washington! Washington!” opens with drums and Lock’s ragged voice), and once the guitars kick in, it actually makes the song more confusing. “A Prescription Written in a Different Language” opens with wavering harmonic notes before busting into a full on punk noisefest. The album lurches around to different styles of weird noise rock (most of the songs are quite short, although “A Man without Lungs” runs over 6 minutes).
But before making it sounds like this is a mess of a record, a few listens will reveal the sanity beneath the chaos. There are even some discernible choruses: “Here Comes the Automata”‘s “Everybody needs protection” and “Bricks Should Have Wings”‘ “Let the bricks fly” are fun to sing along to. Similarly, the guitar work that opens “Set the Oven at 400” is rather conventional and quite pretty.
This disc is not for most people, but Trenchmouth is a cool band that has been unfairly lost to the annals of history.
[READ: April 4, 2011] “Rome, 1974”
I had received a pre-pub of Bezmozgis’ novel The Free World, but I haven’t read it yet. I am interested in Bezmozgis’ writing and was planning to read the book. As it turns out this “story” is really an excerpt from the novel.
The story is about the Krasnansky family, a Jewish extended family emigrating from the Soviet Union to Italy. The opening scenes detail the physical hardship that such a move would have taken (it’s played for somewhat comic effect when the large duffel bags are thrown off the train). There is much dissent among the family members although they sem to settle in well–except for patriarch Samuil who is disconcerted by everything and unhappy to have left the communist country he feels comfortable in. Continue Reading »
As I understand it, the Flaming Lips will be releasing an EP a month for the next twelve months–all in an unusual manner. The first track, “Two Blobs Fucking” comes as a 12-part free video download. Like with their album Zaireeka (which had 4 discs that you were supposed to play simultaneously to get the full effect), this song comes as 12 separate audio tracks. According to the online instructions, you’re supposed to get 12 friends with iPhones to each download a section and to play them at exactly the same time. I don’t have an iPhone (or 12 friends that I could get in the same place at the same time to listen to a song), so I did the next best thing: I used YouTube Downloader, converted the tracks to WAV and then mixed them with Audacity.
I have received many CDs over the years that have mixing technology where you can play certain tracks and not others, but it’s very rare that I play around with them. This whole process was easy enough that I made 20 different mixes of the song.
The “full” version is a fascinating amalgam of noises with a very cool riff that opens the track. About midway through, the whole song is taken over by noise–a distorted squealing noise–for a few seconds. And then the song continues as it was with gentle washes of sound.
The twelve tracks include the main riff, the riff as done by “voices” (doh doh doh), there’s a few noise (guitar) tracks and some noise (animal sound) tracks. There’s a drum and percussion track as well as the vocal track.
The lyrics are a brief story about Wayne finding a dumpster from a factory which makes and discards manikin body parts.
It’s a weird track. It’s not their best by any means, and the lyrics are hard to hear for the most part (unless you isolate them, of course). But having now listened to it so many different ways, I’ve rally grown fond of it. The riff itself is as I said, simple, but very cool.
It’s a neat experiment and nice that it was free (unlike their second release–a USB drive that is buried inside a candy skull which costs $150).
[READ: May 23, 2011] “Deniers”
This is, as far as I can tell, the first short fiction piece that Lipsyte has had published (please correct if I’m wrong), aside from that really short piece in The Revolution Will be Accessorized. I enjoyed The Ask quite a lot, and I was excited to read more from him.
This piece, as the title implies, plays around with types of denial. But it is self-denial that they experience. The main character is Mandy, an adult whose father, Jacob, is still alive but who has recently been put into a nursing home. The opening of the story is more about Jacob. More specifically, it’s about how Jacob relates (or doesn’t) to Mandy. Jacob is a holocaust survivor, but he has barely said one word about it (or, really, anything) to Mandy.
Through a series of flashbacks, we see Mandy’s childhood with this distant father. We also see what happened between Jacob and his wife–a fascinating story of duplicity on almost everyone’s part (and which is wonderfully encapsulated by the picture that accompanies the story (a Shell station lit up at night with the light from the letter “S” unlit). Continue Reading »
SOUNDTRACK: CBC Radio 3’s Sloan 20 Anniversary Podcast (2011).
2011 sees the 20th anniversary of Halifax’s Sloan. I’ve liked Sloan since their first single, “Underwhelmed” broke through American radio (more like MTV’s 120 Minutes, I suppose) eighteen years ago. The band’s profile faded in the US since then, but they have been producing steadily great albums over all of these years.
CDC Radio 3 has created a twenty year best of Sloan Podcast. (And the band has all of their songs streaming online as well).
The Podcast has brief shoutouts from a bunch of fans (famous and non-) and a favorite selection from each of their nine albums (“Underwhelmed” is not included). There were even a couple of tracks that I wasn’t familiar with (some seriously buried tracks from those early records).
Perhaps the funniest moment for me comes when the DJ admits that he didn’t know “Delivering Maybes” from Between the Bridges. I was listening to that album just yesterday, and that’s one of my favorite tracks on the disc. But really, they have so many great songs, it’s hard to choose.
Twenty years. Good on ya, Sloan. Looking forward to the new record The Double Cross.
[READ: June 2, 2011] “Noisemakers”
This story has a suprise appearance by a foley artist. I love foley artists and am totally fascinated by them and would secretly love to be one. So, even though the foley artist is almost drowned, I liked this story quite a bit.
It opens with Peter and his wife, Sarah, riding a boat in a lake. There’s some tension between them, but everything changes when she has to quickly turn the boat to avoid hitting something in the water. It turns out to be a body.
The body happens to be of Lucy (the foley artist) who was Peter’s ex girlfriend. Sarah hates Lucy (there is some background given about them and how Lucy seems to have been involved with Peter since he got married–but I feel like the given details are too vague to justify his current wife’s hatred of Lucy). Sarah believes that Lucy being here is some kind of connection to Peter, but realilstically, they are quite far from their cabin, and she is floating in a lake…. Continue Reading »
In March, I reviewed (and loved) Low’s new single, “Try to Sleep.” That song and two others are presented here in this Tiny Desk concert.
The band for this gig is just Alan Sparhawk on guitar and vocals and his wife Mimi Parker on backing vocals (and thigh slaps). It’s a very stripped down sound, but it really suits these songs (I don’t know the originals of the other two–“Nightingale” and “Something’s Turning Over”) which all come from their new album C’mon.
Their harmonies are wonderful (they are quite striking on “Something’s Turning Over” where I thought she was playing a keyboard, but it is her voice!) and the melodies are pretty terrific too. As I said last time, I’ve never really listened to Low very much (I’ve been sort of turned off at the idea of their being spare and depressing). Strangely, this session which is just the two of them is the opposite of spare. I don’t know if this is a good introduction to the band, but it’s a wonderful introduction to this album. And it’s a surprisingly catchy collection of songs from a bunch of ol’ mopesters.
Although, perhaps the biggest surprise comes at the end of the show when, before leaving, Sparhawk starts playing “Sweet Home Alabama” and Parker even gets the “turn it up” part right.
I wasn’t expecting to listen to this more than once or twice, but I’m really entranced by this session.
[READ: May 10, 2011] Emily of New Moon
Sarah loves the Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon book series. She still has the books from when she was a kid (the copy I read has her signature and phone number (several area code changes ago) written on the inside front cover). After reading the L.M. Montgomery biography, I figured it was time to look into these books. I was going to start with Anne, but we watched the movie not too long ago so I decided that I’d start fresh with an unknown subject.
Emily is a 12-year-old girl whose mother has died and whose father is deathly ill. Indeed, within a chapter or two, Emily finds herself an orphan. I don’t know a thing about 100 year old adoption laws in Canada, but the upshot is that someone from Emily’ mother’s family, the Murrays, will take care of her until she is old enough to do so on her own. However Emily’s mother ran off with a boy when she was very young (which was a disgrace to the family name), and Emily herself is a willful and strong child. Frankly, no one wants her. So, with Emily eavesdropping, the Murray clan discusses her future and decides to make her draw straws for her fate. Continue Reading »
SOUNDTRACK: CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG-KEXP in studio May 11, 2010 (2010).
Charlotte Gainsbourg is a fascinating individual. Between her acting and her singing, she’s had quite a life. And even moreso since she had a near fatal accident.
